The Promise:

Wireless charging is a gadget-lover's dream. And while various companies have been working on (and promising) such technologies for years, very few have actually come to market. This kit purports to charge game-console controllers wirelessly—lay the controller on the metallic pad and it receives an outlet's worth of juice via a clamp-on battery adapter. The key: wire-free charging technology licensed from a company called WildCharge, which manufactures similar products for a small number of cellphones. The Xbox 360 and Wii adapters also double as much-needed rechargeable batteries (the PS3 controller already has a built-in battery), dispensing with the need for AAs.

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The Reality:

Wireless game controllers may be the perfect application for wire-free charging technology. Few things are as frustrating to would-be fraggers as finding out their Xbox 360 controller's AA batteries are dead. And while mobile gadgets often need to fit in pockets, a little extra bulk (which is necessary for the add-on battery adapter) isn't as big a deal for a game controller.

And boy were we impressed when we turned this thing on for the first time.

Getting started was very easy. Each kit (separate ones are sold for Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 controllers) comes packaged with two adapters and a charging pad. Attaching the adapters is simple enough (they take the place of the AA batteries in the Wii and Xbox 360 controllers, and clamp into the PS3 controller's mini-USB jack), but does add a bit of bulge to the back of each controller. Strategically, the added mass is located in a position that does not alter the feel or grip of the controller, so Xbox 360 and PS3 users aren't likely to notice the difference. The Wii adapter, however, fundamentally changes the feel of the controller, making the slim Wii remote significantly thicker. For large-handed individuals, this is actually a good thing, making the otherwise-too-thin controller easier to grip comfortably.

Once an adapter is attached, all that's left to do is rest the controller on the metallic pad (which, of course, needs to be plugged into a wall). This causes a small blue light on the pad to blink on, indicating that electricity is flowing. The pads can take any devices with WildCharge adapters (which, for now, are pretty much limited to these adapters and ones made for the Motorola Razr and a couple of BlackBerry models), but the pads are a bit on the small side, making it difficult to cram too many on there at once. I could fit two Xbox 360 or PS3 controllers, along with a single Wii remote. Since the technology is still relatively new and isn't very widespread, it's unlikely that many people will have enough adapters laying around for this to be a real problem.

Of course, wireless charging itself is nothing new—anybody with an electric toothbrush likely takes advantage of it on a daily basis (how did you think your plastic toothbrush holder charged your Oral-B?). But anybody with an electric toothbrush also knows that it takes a very, very long time to charge those things—we often need to leave ours docked overnight to get just a few minutes of brush-time out of it. That's because toothbrushes typically rely on what's called inductive charging, meaning the power is wirelessly transferred to the toothbrush through invisible magnetic fields that induce a change in the battery's voltage. It's cool, but it's also inefficient. The TouchCharge Kit uses something called conductive charging, which is much faster. This technology transfers electricity through the metal pad to a series of contacts that bump out of the back of the adapters. And while this may sound a bit scary (after all, the exposed metal pad is actually carrying an electrical charge), contact with your hand automatically cuts the current (yes, we tried it).

Since users would presumably leave their pads plugged in at all times, we were curious how much power they used when there were no gadgets on them. To find out, we hooked one up to a Watts Up electrical meter. My findings: When there was nothing on the pad, it drew a steady current of 0.5 watts. For every controller we placed on the pad, the figure jumped by 1 watt. So one controller drew a total of 1.5 watts, two controllers drew 2.5 watts, etc. This 0.5-watt idle charge is fairly low (most small gadgets pull about 1 watt when they aren't in use), but this good news is slightly dampened by the fact that the current did not appear to diminish once a controller was fully charged, meaning the energy-conscious should remove their controllers from the pads after they are done sucking up juice. And while this is a problem that is shared by a lot of gadgets , we asked WildCharge founder Izhar Matzkevich why the current stays steady once the charge is complete. "We're talking pretty low numbers here," he told me. "We talked about putting some charge control and complex power-management infrastructure into it, but for cost reasons we did not. Instead, we did something very simple and gave it a fixed voltage."

The Bottom Line:

Wireless charging is impressive, but it's also far from perfect. For now, it only works on gadgets with specialized adapters placed on specialized pads—and these adapters add bulk. Of course, the eventual goal is to build the technology directly into both gadgets and tabletops. "That's our main thrust," Matzkevich told me. "We have designs and are in advanced stages with some big-name partners whose names I can't divulge. We're also engaging infrastructure. Things like Starbucks coffee tables and conference room tables." Still, until this becomes a reality, we have to deal with a bit of bulge. Fortunately, in the case of game controllers, a little added bulk never hurt anyone. —Seth Porges